“What did you say?” he asked, his voice tight.
“You’d rather believe nothing can fix you than accept that the answer might not come from money.”
She met his eyes.
“I know how to help you walk again.”
The world seemed to stop.
The next morning, before sunrise, Lily and Maria walked through the quiet halls of the center. Maria’s hands trembled.
“We can still leave,” she whispered.
Lily shook her head. “No.”
Inside Ethan’s suite, everything was prepared. Doctors, machines, cameras. Among them stood Dr. Harris, watching closely.
Ethan looked different—less arrogant, more uncertain.
“What do you need?” he asked.
“Tell me everything,” Lily said.
As he spoke about the accident, the fall, the diagnosis, the years of frustration, Lily placed her fingers carefully along his spine.
Her precision stunned the doctors.
“I feel something,” Ethan whispered. “Warmth… in my legs.”
The room froze.
Monitors flickered with new signals.
Lily worked in silence for nearly half an hour, her small body trembling with effort.
When she finished, she stepped back, exhausted.
“I helped open the path,” she said softly.
Ethan stared at his feet.
Then—his toes moved.
“I saw that,” Daniel whispered.
The doctors argued, uncertain.